Destructive Church Trends In North American Christianity

Christian churches in North America are facing a crisis. Attendance is down, giving is down, young people are leaving churches at alarming rates - but that’s not the worse part. The worse part is that our Christian churches are exacerbating this crisis thanks to a handful of shoddy beliefs. And by the end of this video, you’ll know what those beliefs are - and how to resist the pull of them.

 

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What's In This Session?

• Branding is what others think about you - before our churches can truly reach our city and/or community - we need to understand how we are perceived (2:22)
• #1. Persecution Complex (2:55)
• More than 245 million Christians in the world are highly persecuted for their Christian faith. 1 in 9 Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution (2:59)
• White evangelicals think they’re super persecuted (4:23)
• God’s Not Dead feeds the narrative (4:43)
• Don’t belittle the real persecution of others by manufacturing fake persecution for yourself (5:10)
• James Harden comparison (8:48)
• #2. Theological Certainty (11:14)
• Hundreds of denominations and translations and you’re certain yours is the absolute correct one (11:18)
• Theological certainty is a symptom of trusting beliefs more than God (12:47)
• Surrendering the need to be right, and our pride opens the door for empathy and compassion (15:47)
• Judge them by their fruits? The Protestant quest for theological certainty has led to a staggering number of different denominations and sub-denominations that disagree sharply about how significant portions of the Bible should be understood (19:35)
• Things that matter: incarnational living, selflessness, laying down one’s own life for others, generosity, bringing life to death, bringing heaven to Earth, redemption, reconciliation, love being the uniting/redeeming/ultimate force in the world to do good (20:06)
• #3. Celebrity Worship (22:25)
• Canadian commercials versus American commercials (22:49)
• The face of American Christianity is Donald Trump, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Bill Hybels, Pete Wilson etc. (23:46)
• The true danger of each of these beliefs is that they are ancient sins masquerading as Christian virtues (31:29)

 

Show Notes & Resources Mentioned:

• 2019 World Watch List Press Room
• Perceive Discrimination Against Christians Than Muslims
• Pro Church Tools
• Pro Church Tools on Facebook
• Pro Church Tools on YouTube
• Brady Shearer on Instagram
• Brady Shearer on Twitter
• Alex Mills on Instagram